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Figured I'd start a new thread as the start of this was in my previous "Cease of Training" rumour mill thread...
Today (4 Jun 08) I attended the Lecture on our Trade Amalgamation... It was quite a dump of info with some answers and more questions towards the end... Lecture started about 13H00 sharp and ended 16H30ish...
New trade will (tentatively) be called: Communication and Information Systems Technologist (CIST). They're wanting to drop the Technologist part of it and put something else in there but for the time being we were told (by the Master Sig) that's what the name is for now. There was a lot to absorb so I'll do my best to blurt it out for you all...
General info given in Introduction: 3 out of 5 trades covered in C&E Branch are army owned+run now, LCIS, Sig Op, Lineman... Approx 4000 pers across C&E Branch of CF with approx 50% spread out all across entire CF and others posted to "traditional" positions for each trade respectively. Manpower shortages by trade: Sig Op - 220-300pers (I give this range b/c the Master Sig gave both figures during the lecture), 100 LCIS, 0 Lineman. So it seems the Lineman aren't having recruiting problems. They said part of this problem (no kidding) might be because the Aptitude Qualification for Lineman is 18 where for Sig and LCIS it's 30. This obviously disqualifies some people. We'll cover that more later...
1.) The Amalgamation stems from project MOSART originating in 1999, whose purpose it was to examine the CF Trades and determine if there was a way to cut-down how many Trades were. The reason they wanted to cut down the amount of trades is because someone thought we didn't need as many seeing as our legal manpower was cut from 90,000 to 60,000 ASAP back then etc... This project stopped dead in it's tracks approx April 2006. When the new CWO (now our Master Sig) CWO Helmann(sp?), he was told to get the ball rolling once again on Amalgamation.
2.) Program now called MES, I scribbled that note unfortunately and have only gotten Mes- Military E???? Structure. Basically MES has the same purpose in mind but is actively enforcing change as we stay Operational and keep a high tempo. No cease of training anywhere or operations to accomodate the new changes.
3.) Without posting a bunch of the technical yabber, I'll give it to you straight...
BMQ+SQ for everyone (no surprise) then a common CIST course which will have components of all the 3 trades... The idea of this course is to have a CIST be able to perform Line 1 repairs on equipment in a rad van etc... That's the whole purpose, use and maintain/repair the equipment. He (Master Sig) said that the idea is to have field expedient fixes for everything from line breaks to troubleshooting the TCCCS system in the back of a CP van...
After this common core training, you would be posted to HQ+Sigs of each respective Brigade as is now for most Sig Ops, learning the ropes of Brigade life and that whole back of worms. The Corporals/Specialists would be moved on to other postings etc... Yes, I said Specialists. So after you're "Core" CIST training, you would be evaluated by you're Chain of Command at you're unit, consulted (asked what you'd like to do) and given the option to "Specialize" in one of the 3 old trades. Kind of... LCIS, Sig Op, Lineman. So then you get more specific training pertaining to that job. All this training will be conducted mostly at CFSCE. They are trying to find a way to make the training unit-doable so they can get people trained faster and keep them up to date. Weather that's hiring civilian instructors locally or sending people to local educational institutions Master Sig did not specify. Onward...
So you've been at you're unit for a year or two, you've got some dirt behind you're ears, you're asked what you want to specialize in, you say Sig Op (of course the best Trade...
) you do you're first specialist training (Which might be called QL4). You go back to unit, work for a few more years, get course loaded on a QL5A... This is where it gets interesting...
QL5+QL6 will be COMMON for the trade. So all CIST trades people, even though you've now "specialized" in you're respective field, will go to a 5A/6A etc, and do a common course mixed back in with other Lineman, Operator and LCIS types... This is to ensure we're all on the same page, we use the same lingo, we all have the same training to a degree and can communicate effectively. So that when a Sig Op is talking about a CEOI, an LCIS tech will know exactly what's he's yammering on about. And so that when you call a "tech" in to fix the stupid NAU in the back of you're rad van, he understands what you're saying and how it doesn't work from an operator's point of view. Interoperability. I'm giving the exact examples Master Sig gave BTW...
Grandfathering us who are already in and trade qualified? Sort of. They haven't worked out the details yet on what rank they'll cut that off from. Example: Tel ops being amalgamated in the past, simply told to get out or remuster? Nope, not this time. Apparently we'll be given a choice if we're under the rank cutoff, say for example it's MCpl, to pick our specialty, according to our current employment/unit and work experience and training, with education being included in the deciding factor.
Another interesting point. Since we will ALWAYS be considered a CIST, no matter what and will be technically under the same trade, no remustering. If you've been a Sig Op Sub trade for the past 3 years, you can switch to lineman without having to perform a remuster. And they want this to be able to be completed and decided at the unit level. So obviously they're expecting the unit to know their troops!
Manning issues: Since the Sig Op trade in particular is so short on people, they're also looking at changing the style of recruiting. Currently, it takes an Aptitude score of 30 or higher to be able to apply for Sig Op or LCIS tech, but only 18 for a Lineman. They have studied this and found that partially this is the reason that the Lineman trade isn't really short. They think the bar is set a little too high for Sigs and LCIS and that otherwise would-be CIST's are getting turned away or going to another trade. They're going to put further study into this and see if they can lower the Aptitude requirement to something more reasonable. Because to them, a Lineman is just as intelligent as a Sig Op as a LCIS tech... We Sigs know better of course! ^-^ Furthermore, they're going to make it very easy for other trades to remuster into Sig Op/CIST, at the moment there is a standing order CF wide that if a combat arms soldier wants to remuster to Sigs, his CO cannot decline, he has to approve and pass it up. The Master Sig said this program was implemented and advertised about 4 years ago by unit CO's (or was suppose to have been advertised, I could see how that got brushed by...) but said they will look at revisiting this idea and refreshing it.
SPEC PAY
So, obviously I bet you were wondering what was said about this... Well guess what! Nothing definitive. He said that the whole purpose of amalgamation is NOT about Spec pay, it's about manning and making us more effective. He said amalgamation will address approx 80% of our manning issues and problems currently. It's not perfect, but it'll work and it's definitely better than our current situation. So what about Spec pay you say? As of now, nothing changes, they're looking at it continuously and trying to sort of "qualify" the new trade for it. He said that's up to the Treasury to decide who deserves it or not. He said they look at similar civilian occupations and their pay levels and determine if they need to issue Spec pay to that trade of troops. He said that it will not be a deciding factor at all in the upcoming changes but they will do their best. He did sound hopeful about it though and said that they'll receive feedback from the Treasury on what to work on to "qualify".
Trade Amalgamation is aimed to be completely implemented by Spring 2011. New "CIST" type courses and training being updated at CFSCE by Sept' 08.
So, that just about sums it up, I'm sure there's something I'm forgetting but that's what I was able to scribble down as important points and get to you people here.
Thoughts? Gripes? Complaints? Release forms? What new Sub-trade do you want?
Today (4 Jun 08) I attended the Lecture on our Trade Amalgamation... It was quite a dump of info with some answers and more questions towards the end... Lecture started about 13H00 sharp and ended 16H30ish...
New trade will (tentatively) be called: Communication and Information Systems Technologist (CIST). They're wanting to drop the Technologist part of it and put something else in there but for the time being we were told (by the Master Sig) that's what the name is for now. There was a lot to absorb so I'll do my best to blurt it out for you all...
General info given in Introduction: 3 out of 5 trades covered in C&E Branch are army owned+run now, LCIS, Sig Op, Lineman... Approx 4000 pers across C&E Branch of CF with approx 50% spread out all across entire CF and others posted to "traditional" positions for each trade respectively. Manpower shortages by trade: Sig Op - 220-300pers (I give this range b/c the Master Sig gave both figures during the lecture), 100 LCIS, 0 Lineman. So it seems the Lineman aren't having recruiting problems. They said part of this problem (no kidding) might be because the Aptitude Qualification for Lineman is 18 where for Sig and LCIS it's 30. This obviously disqualifies some people. We'll cover that more later...
1.) The Amalgamation stems from project MOSART originating in 1999, whose purpose it was to examine the CF Trades and determine if there was a way to cut-down how many Trades were. The reason they wanted to cut down the amount of trades is because someone thought we didn't need as many seeing as our legal manpower was cut from 90,000 to 60,000 ASAP back then etc... This project stopped dead in it's tracks approx April 2006. When the new CWO (now our Master Sig) CWO Helmann(sp?), he was told to get the ball rolling once again on Amalgamation.
2.) Program now called MES, I scribbled that note unfortunately and have only gotten Mes- Military E???? Structure. Basically MES has the same purpose in mind but is actively enforcing change as we stay Operational and keep a high tempo. No cease of training anywhere or operations to accomodate the new changes.
3.) Without posting a bunch of the technical yabber, I'll give it to you straight...
BMQ+SQ for everyone (no surprise) then a common CIST course which will have components of all the 3 trades... The idea of this course is to have a CIST be able to perform Line 1 repairs on equipment in a rad van etc... That's the whole purpose, use and maintain/repair the equipment. He (Master Sig) said that the idea is to have field expedient fixes for everything from line breaks to troubleshooting the TCCCS system in the back of a CP van...
After this common core training, you would be posted to HQ+Sigs of each respective Brigade as is now for most Sig Ops, learning the ropes of Brigade life and that whole back of worms. The Corporals/Specialists would be moved on to other postings etc... Yes, I said Specialists. So after you're "Core" CIST training, you would be evaluated by you're Chain of Command at you're unit, consulted (asked what you'd like to do) and given the option to "Specialize" in one of the 3 old trades. Kind of... LCIS, Sig Op, Lineman. So then you get more specific training pertaining to that job. All this training will be conducted mostly at CFSCE. They are trying to find a way to make the training unit-doable so they can get people trained faster and keep them up to date. Weather that's hiring civilian instructors locally or sending people to local educational institutions Master Sig did not specify. Onward...
So you've been at you're unit for a year or two, you've got some dirt behind you're ears, you're asked what you want to specialize in, you say Sig Op (of course the best Trade...
QL5+QL6 will be COMMON for the trade. So all CIST trades people, even though you've now "specialized" in you're respective field, will go to a 5A/6A etc, and do a common course mixed back in with other Lineman, Operator and LCIS types... This is to ensure we're all on the same page, we use the same lingo, we all have the same training to a degree and can communicate effectively. So that when a Sig Op is talking about a CEOI, an LCIS tech will know exactly what's he's yammering on about. And so that when you call a "tech" in to fix the stupid NAU in the back of you're rad van, he understands what you're saying and how it doesn't work from an operator's point of view. Interoperability. I'm giving the exact examples Master Sig gave BTW...
Grandfathering us who are already in and trade qualified? Sort of. They haven't worked out the details yet on what rank they'll cut that off from. Example: Tel ops being amalgamated in the past, simply told to get out or remuster? Nope, not this time. Apparently we'll be given a choice if we're under the rank cutoff, say for example it's MCpl, to pick our specialty, according to our current employment/unit and work experience and training, with education being included in the deciding factor.
Another interesting point. Since we will ALWAYS be considered a CIST, no matter what and will be technically under the same trade, no remustering. If you've been a Sig Op Sub trade for the past 3 years, you can switch to lineman without having to perform a remuster. And they want this to be able to be completed and decided at the unit level. So obviously they're expecting the unit to know their troops!
Manning issues: Since the Sig Op trade in particular is so short on people, they're also looking at changing the style of recruiting. Currently, it takes an Aptitude score of 30 or higher to be able to apply for Sig Op or LCIS tech, but only 18 for a Lineman. They have studied this and found that partially this is the reason that the Lineman trade isn't really short. They think the bar is set a little too high for Sigs and LCIS and that otherwise would-be CIST's are getting turned away or going to another trade. They're going to put further study into this and see if they can lower the Aptitude requirement to something more reasonable. Because to them, a Lineman is just as intelligent as a Sig Op as a LCIS tech... We Sigs know better of course! ^-^ Furthermore, they're going to make it very easy for other trades to remuster into Sig Op/CIST, at the moment there is a standing order CF wide that if a combat arms soldier wants to remuster to Sigs, his CO cannot decline, he has to approve and pass it up. The Master Sig said this program was implemented and advertised about 4 years ago by unit CO's (or was suppose to have been advertised, I could see how that got brushed by...) but said they will look at revisiting this idea and refreshing it.
SPEC PAY
So, obviously I bet you were wondering what was said about this... Well guess what! Nothing definitive. He said that the whole purpose of amalgamation is NOT about Spec pay, it's about manning and making us more effective. He said amalgamation will address approx 80% of our manning issues and problems currently. It's not perfect, but it'll work and it's definitely better than our current situation. So what about Spec pay you say? As of now, nothing changes, they're looking at it continuously and trying to sort of "qualify" the new trade for it. He said that's up to the Treasury to decide who deserves it or not. He said they look at similar civilian occupations and their pay levels and determine if they need to issue Spec pay to that trade of troops. He said that it will not be a deciding factor at all in the upcoming changes but they will do their best. He did sound hopeful about it though and said that they'll receive feedback from the Treasury on what to work on to "qualify".
Trade Amalgamation is aimed to be completely implemented by Spring 2011. New "CIST" type courses and training being updated at CFSCE by Sept' 08.
So, that just about sums it up, I'm sure there's something I'm forgetting but that's what I was able to scribble down as important points and get to you people here.
Thoughts? Gripes? Complaints? Release forms? What new Sub-trade do you want?